A quest? Or simply, horrid luck?
Again, it did not matter.
Focus.
Pandora clutched the box to her chest. It was the only thing granting her equilibrium, she would do this for the humans, that was all she sought for. She looked around, looking at the ravaged plains, trying to find signs of any human life. And they were there, the mortals were struggling as they ran for safety, praying desperately for help.
Entrails of their suffering marred the soil, and their screams an ode to eternal agony.
The girl debated in her mind. She wanted to help them, desperately so. Yet, if she approached them, her enemies would surely punish her kindness.
Pandora was running out of time, in but a minute, she would have to be thrown into the jaws of terror once more and dance with the denizens of the dead.
" B O O M! "
" S K R E E E E E ! "
" RAGHH! RAAAA!!! "
A cacophony of screams rang in her ears. Her mind was hurting in ways she had never before knew possible.
She shook, her sanity was slipping, and it showed.
" B O O M! "
Her ears deafened. Her heart's thumping was the only thing she could feel. She felt her vision blur, her ears deafen, and senses dull. The cold and hard exterior infiltrating her senses seemed to mock and jeer at her.
" RAAAAAGH! "
tick tock... tick tock...
" RAAAAAAGH! "
She stiffened.
Focus!
Pandora was all by her lonesome, introduced to horrors and pain beyond her knowledge, and subjected to situations she had never even get to read about in the scripts Lady Athena had gifted her.
And now, it seemed, the fate of humanity rested upon her shoulders. For real, this time. If this box lost her possession.. she-.. she did not know what would happen, and for once, she didn't want to find out.
FOCUS!
" Boom! Boom! Boom!" thumps and booms reverberated through the ground, like the drumming of War.
Pandora was hundreds of meters away, right between the fleeing humans.. and them.
The winners, the drakes.
It was only a matter of time, after all. Drakes could not fly, but they were walking fortresses. A force of nature embodied in a vessel of bubbling magma and iron hide. The Amphitheres were many, but not numerous enough to even seriously wound a drake, let alone with their previously diminished numbers.
All the drakes did, was merely wait. Merely wait as the feathered serpents swooped down to nick and claw at their hide, and then, engulf their winged forms in searing lava.
The true fight for survival had begun.
Pandora was exhausted in every way imaginable, to have faced this merely days after her conception, any lesser being would have buckled and died under the pressure. The drakes, though victorious, were left with battered scales and depleted energy.
The stakes were unfathomably important, a historical moment worthy of being recorded in the scrolls of the sages, and sealed within their labyrinths of knowledge.
" W-wha- What?.. Why.. WHY?!? " A man merely a hundred of meters away from Pandora exclaimed.
" By the Gods... " An elderly man said in resignation.
" I DON'T WANT TO DIE! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!! LORD PROMETHEUS, PLEASE!! " A younger man exclaimed in hysteria.
She could hear their cries, she could hear their pleas, she could hear their pain. These were regular mortals, not blessed with supernatural gifts from the Gods. Their bodies were feeble, and their intellect was merely developing.
Pandora was not like them, she was blessed with wisdom that even the God's acknowledged, she was made of divine clay, she was nothing like them.
But she knew, they were one and the same. The Gods said so themselves, she was the missing piece to their broken future, she was the key.
That was what she wholeheartedly believed.
It burned in her heart with the persistence of the divine hearth, her belief fueled her, it gave her... it gave her..
What was this feeling?
She did not know... Pandora thought as she clutched the mysterious box to her chest, the very one that seemed to finally give her comfort in it's cold surfaces.
Pandora looked at the small pride of Drakes, the Earth ruptured and cracked as they galloped along the plains, lava flowed in streams and erupted in geysers all around.
She took a firm stance as she clutched the box tightly, she had already decided she would fight until she couldn't anymore.
And so, she waited, standing between the approaching behemoths and the humans.
" GRRRRRRRRR!!! " Rumbling shook her small frame as the drakes growled menacingly at her, nonverbally communicating their killing intent.
Pandora evaluated her surroundings for the hundredth time. Molten ground, no cover in sight, just a great distance among them.
" Hup! " She got to work immediately. Channeling her God given physical strength to it's absolute fullest, she dug her hands into the ground. To do this, she had to set the box down, a great risk.
" RAH! " And with a heave, she ripped a giant chunk of Earth off the ground, and hurled it at the drakes who had gone berserk after seeing the "abandoned" box.
" Fwooooo!~ "
" B O O M ! " Debris littered the area like rain, obstructing the drakes view.
" Hup! " After seeing the giant boulder hit, she threw another.. and another..
One after another, the boulders rained down on the behemoths, blinding them and making them expend energy to protect themselves. This would've been impossible before with the flying hindrances who would've easily crossed the distance interrupted her fire, but with a weakened pride of Drakes, it worked amazing.
" Fwooo!~ "
" B O O M ! " Some hit, some didn't. To Pandora, hindering their advances was merely a side effect as she set her plans in motion. If one looked closely enough, one would've noticed that she never overextended her aim, only ever aiming just in front of the behemoths, oftentimes missing them entirely and leaving the giant boulder out in the open, scattered along the plains.
" R A A A GH ! "
" ROOOO--- !! "
They wailed and wailed in a frenzy, desperate for the power hidden in the abandoned box, so much so that they failed to notice what was happening right in front of them. As the dust cleared once more, the drakes noticed they had hit a roadblock, one that was made of a multitude of boulders.
Indeed, they had been trapped! Tricked and deceived, bamboozled, even. Everything was planned, from each hurling boulder to the setting down of the box.
Pandora's most beloved gift, her mind.
--- To Be Continued ---
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